alright here is a challenge. With a POD after 10th century find a way to prevent the Byzantine military aristocracy from rising to power and keep the emperor in complete and absolute control. Is it possible or not.. Also if the military aristocracy never takes power how different would byzantine polocy look with no rise of the aristocracy to power and prominence.
I think that you'll always get a powerful aristocracy dictating policy in the Empire, to be honest. Their power was relatively held in check in the seventh and eighth centuries because their heartland in Anatolia was frequently under attack from the Arabs, but as soon as the Rhomanians went back on the initiative, they re-emerged. Probably the best way you can stop them coming back is to keep the Arabs a constant danger to the ERE.
^Happening since the death of Marcus Aurelius actually. Why do you think they call it the Dominate?
I'd say that the power of a military aristocracy wasn't really a developing process over Roman Imperial history, and argue that on the contrary, a military aristocracy was an important part of nearly all pre-modern societies. After all, what were Sulla and Julius Caesar if not military aristocrats?
As an aside, I'd say the reason that the period after Diocletian is called the Dominate is because the Emperor became
stronger vis a vis the military aristocracy, not weaker.
Pontiff right? That was the high priest of the Roman religion and later became a title stuck onto the emperor. Vicar might be another option.
The title of Pontiff was given up by the late fourth century by the Emperor. His religious authority derived not from holding any office, but from being "Equal of the Apostles". For the sake of this discussion, then, the Emperor in Constantinople never held the title
Pontifex Maximus.